You may or may not have heard that the highly-anticipated upcoming computer game "Fallout 3" was recently Refused Classification (i.e. banned) in Australia by the Office of Film and Literature Classification due to "drug use" in the game. (The player can for example take morphine to temporarily suppress pain. There are negative effects as well as positive ones, obviously.)

Apparently this is far too "adult" for a video game, despite the hundreds if not thousands of movies and TV shows that contain medicinal drug use!

This decision highlights the need for an R 18+ rating for games in Australia. We are the only developed country without such a rating; the maximum age bracket for games here is MA 15+, despite the fact that we do have an R 18+ rating for movies. This has two bad results. Firstly, some games which should really be marked R 18+ are shoved down into MA 15+, thus being inappropriately rated; secondly, some games which would fit within the criteria used for R 18+ movies are banned entirely, as with Fallout 3.

The first result means that parents cannot trust the classification system. Why have an OFLC at all if they're restrained from doing their job properly? An R rating is needed so that certain games can be marked "adults only", as they should be.

The second result is hurting our games industry and frustrating Australian gamers. Australia has a rapidly-growing local games industry worth millions of dollars; however, the bad international press that occurs every time Australia bans a game is unquestionably discouraging foreign countries from further investment here. Why would you spend millions of dollars to fund a development studio in a country with a clearly games-hostile government, when you could just fund a US or European developer instead?

If you agree with me that this is a ridiculous situation, and you're from Australia, please take a moment to sign this online petition:

While the effectiveness of such petitions is unclear, every little bit helps. If you want to take further action, you can write to the Secretary to the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General or complain directly to the OFLC, as described here:

Really I'm disappointed by this: While I know there's silliness there as well as everywhere else, I tend to think of Australians as a practical people without some of the baggage of Europe. This is an exception.

In the U.S., politicians, including ones I otherwise respect, always talk about suppressing video games or whatever, but don't usually do much.

Okay Deadron, I'm going to have to stop you there before you spout any more ignorant nonsense about foreign countries- Australians, if anything, are petty criminals who nicked our baggage from us in the first place!

In England we have a film rating called 12A, which means a little kid under (or equal to?) 12 can go see a film as long as they have an adult accompanying them. That should be applied to games in australia: so a 10 year old can play GTA as long as their older brother is there telling them who to shoot.

I'm not sure a different rating would help. In the US we have the AO rating, but because companies like Wal-Mart won't sell games with an AO rating, publishers always push for an M and will clip content out of their games if they have to to fit. This ends up giving us the exact same problems you mentioned. (It also doesn't help that the ESRB's ratings can be a bit arbitrary and I've heard rumors that they can be enticed to "massage" ratings.)

Keep in mind, you can still quite easily import games that have been refused classification - it's incredibly irritating, though, that you have to go through all that rigamarole.

IIRC, Fallout 3 is the first case of a major game being almost certainly refused classification - earlier games have been able to get away with it with minor censoring - a single cutscene removed from GTA IV made the game suitable for an MA15+ rating, according to the OFLC (A good example of why we need an R 18+ rating).

The drug mechanic in Fallout 3 is so deeply embedded in the game that this sort of thing is almost certainly impossible.

Oh, and Deadron, we've got a wide variety of nonsense going on in our country. For the last ten years we've had John Howard, political snake, in power - the results are pretty nasty, and include massive damage to our education and healthcare systems, sickening refugee policy, holding back gay marriage, significantly increased cost of living, limited action on environmental issues, particularly global warming, pacifying the Indonesian autocracy for the sole reason that it's nearby, no pressure on Japan over its whaling, even when it is performed illegally in Australian waters, and the list goes on.

Fortunately Howard is finally gone (probably because the industrial relations changes he set up pushed things just a bit too far for the populace to accept - basically, he removed any and all protections that had been in place for decades - everything that the unions had fought for), so we might see some changes in those areas.

That's good to hear. Although I wouldn't get my hopes up too high, even if this goes ahead the battle is far from over. R18+ is a joke. It's pretty much MA15+ but it allows them to focus on the offending elements a little more.

There really is no 'I'm an adult, tell me what's in it and let me decide for myself' rating in this country.

What difference do the ratings make? People are going to buy the games with whatever garbage content they want regardless of the ratings. If its banned, they'll just buy it online somewhere.

Owning content which has been Refused Classification is apparently illegal. So when the fascist police raid your house*, or if you're hit with a random Customs inspection, then it'll get confiscated and you'll probably be fined or waterboarded* or whatever the penalty is.

(* I'm joking, I'm joking...

... Mostly.)

@DarkView: It's true, the OFLC has banned movies before, despite the R 18+ rating. The war on stupidity has many fronts, and this is but one of them...

@Lummox JR: Mmm, perhaps. But I think there are some local differences from the US model. We don't have Wal-Mart or an equivalent, for example. We do have big chain "stock-everything" stores, like Big W and Target, but they're not nearly as ubiquitous as Wal-Mart and they don't tend to stock M games anyway, except for the more popular ones. I wouldn't go there to buy a game. I'd go to a specialist store like JB Hi-Fi or GAME or maybe even EB.

Also, Australia is not as important a market as the US in global terms (sigh), so it's unlikely that developers and publishers will go to the same lengths to get an R instead of an MA rating here. If the cut is small (like GTA's cutscene) and the penalty is being banned then yes; but an R rating isn't such a big deal. I reckon Fallout 3 would still sell pretty well here with an R rating.

And heck, at least then we'd be able to own the thing legally.

Deadron wrote:

I officially apologize for the fact that you don't live in America...

Oh, no, you shouldn't have!

Really I'm disappointed by this: While I know there's silliness there as well as everywhere else, I tend to think of Australians as a practical people without some of the baggage of Europe. This is an exception.

In the U.S., politicians, including ones I otherwise respect, always talk about suppressing video games or whatever, but don't usually do much.

We do have our fair share of loonies down here. Jp gives a good summary of some of the problems. Our new PM Kevin Rudd (it still hasn't really sunk in that He Who Must Not Be Named is finally gone) is by no means perfect, but at least he's not actively working to gut the country from the inside out, and he's making an effort to repair some of You-Know-Who's damage. That makes a nice change. I actually agree with some of his policy decisions! Shock, horror!

I'm so used to the old model of Shrub* & Co. reliably taking the exact opposite of the sensible course every bloody time they had a decision to make. Seriously. Every issue, every time. You could set your bloody clock by it.